Most say Biden and Trump acted inappropriately in handling classified docs, poll finds

A majority of Americans say both Joe Biden and Donald Trump erred in their handling of classified documents after leaving government, according to new polling.

Sixty-four percent say President Joe Biden, then vice president, acted inappropriately in handling classified documents after leaving office in 2017, according to an ABC News/Ipsos poll released on Jan. 22.

The poll of 532 adults was conducted Jan. 20-21 with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

In November 2022, the president’s personal attorneys discovered classified materials in a closet at a Washington, D.C., office used by Biden after he left the vice presidency, according to The Associated Press.

A second collection of sensitive documents was found one month later in the garage at Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, per the AP.

In response to these revelations, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Robert Hur, formerly a U.S. attorney in the Trump administration, to serve as special counsel and investigate the matter on Jan. 12, according to the Justice Department.

Biden, who has received criticism for failing to disclose the discovery of the classified documents until after the midterm elections, has said the White House is fully cooperating with the Justice Department on the probe, according to Reuters.

“I think you’re gonna find there’s nothing there,” Biden said, per Reuters. “I have no regrets. I’m following what the lawyers have told me they want me to do. It’s exactly what we’re doing. There’s no there there.”

Similarly, 77% of those surveyed in the poll say that former President Donald Trump acted inappropriately in handling classified materials after leaving the White House and heading to Mar-a-Lago in 2021.

After the National Archives tried for over a year to obtain sensitive records held by Trump, the Justice Department intervened and worked with Trump’s attorneys who handed over what they said were all of the requested documents, according to Reuters. However, a search warrant executed by the FBI revealed about 100 more classified documents in Trump’s home.

Garland in November appointed Jack Smith, a former war crimes prosecutor, as a special counsel to oversee the investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents, in addition to a separate criminal investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to the Justice Department.

In response to the FBI’s discovery of sensitive documents, Trump stated that “it was all declassified,” according to The New York Times.

There are many similarities between the two investigations involving classified materials, though Biden and his attorneys appear to have been more cooperative and forthcoming with investigators than Trump and his legal team, according to Reuters.

When asked which president’s case was of more serious concern, 43% of survey respondents said Trump, 20% said Biden, and 30% said both were about the same.

The potential wrongdoing results from Biden and Trump running afoul of the Presidential Records Act, which was passed in 1978 following concerns that outgoing President Richard Nixon wanted to destroy White House recordings. The act mandated that presidential and vice presidential records be delivered to the National Archives immediately after the leaders depart office.

However, the act affords presidents “a high degree of discretion over what materials are to be preserved,” and it does not outline any enforcement mechanism in the case of oversights or intentional noncompliance, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service.

“No president is perfect, but most presidents since Nixon have attempted to comply with the PRA to the best of their ability,” presidential historian Lindsay Chervinsky wrote in an August column. “If they discover something is missing, they generally ask for it back (privately) and the president or their staff have complied. The enormity of the task does require a certain element of good faith.”

It’s unclear what special counsels Smith and Hur will conclude following their investigations, though no presidents have ever been prosecuted for violating the PRA, according to Bloomberg. However, President Bill Clinton’s national security adviser, Sandy Berger, admitted to hiding classified documents related to 9/11 in 2003 and was sentenced to two years probation.

This story was originally published January 23, 2023 at 12:19 PM with the headline "Most say Biden and Trump acted inappropriately in handling classified docs, poll finds."